People waiting at Market Street for Muni to arrive can now enjoy a free Black history lesson, artistically taught by a renowned Bay Area illustrator.
Various Muni bus stops in San Francisco, starting at the southeast corner of Market and Steuart Streets near the city's iconic Ferry Building, now feature posters celebrating Black history, designed by Oakland artist Fred Noland.
"I keep thinking about the importance of Black history and my own experience with it," Noland told KCBS Radio's Kathy Novak about his creative process for the unique posters, a series funded by a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. In total, there are seven unique designs featuring some of the city's historic Black figures that will line the walls of various downtown San Francisco bus stops until the end of March.
"When I dug in (to the research), I just learned all of these crazy different avenues," Noland said of the people he profiled.
Noland's previous work has been featured in New Yorker and SF Weekly.
The posters honor both nationally-known figures and lower-profile pioneers of San Francisco's illustrious Black history, ranging from William Alexander Leidsdorff to The Big Five of Bayview to Sly and the Family Stone and everything in between.
The posters also include figures like William Cobb and Josephine Cole, the first Black principal and first Black teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District, attorney Cecil F. Poole, Supervisor Doris Ward, sculptor Sargent Johnson, Muni motorman Audley Cole, LGBTQ rights pioneer Cleo "Glenn" Bonner and Maya Angelou, who was San Francisco's first Black and first female streetcar conductor.
"When I dug into the research, I started to find more of the community activists and more of the kind of...people who are more relatable and are not so much in the stratosphere," Noland explained. "I really feel like that's important for people to see...the other people in Black history who have contributed but perhaps aren't quite as lauded, quite as celebrated but are every bit as important."
To view photos of Noland's past work, visit his website or Instagram.
The story was first reported by SFGATE.
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